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Month: April 2016

OH MY GOD! Just when you think iDoceo can’t get any better, it does! I know I talk a lot about iDoceo and how much I love it, you can read this post here as evidence, or refer to this page here.

So, iDoceo is basically what I would describe as a ‘Swiss army-knife’ of tools for a typical teacher: lesson planner, calendar, to-do-list, gradebook, timer, seating-planner, random student-selector, resource-library, voice-note recorder, photo/video-evidence-capturer and so much more!

But when I updated my iDoceo on my iPad yesterday, I discovered something wonderful! The new update includes a RUBRIC tool, which integrates seamlessly with the Gradebook… As a teacher using iDoceo, now you can create/import rubrics and grade/assess projects using those rubrics right there on the app… The results will then be added and recorded as a column in the Gradebook!

Here’s a short video of me talking about this new tool, as well as showing how I too am still learning to use it:

Basically, Explain Everything is an iPad app that turns your iPad into an interactive whiteboard where you can draw, doodle, add text, add images, add shapes, record your voice, and export the whole project as a PDF or as a video file to upload elsewhere! It’s amazing…

I’m currently working on building a library of instructional videos for my IB Economics classes next year. It’s a big project, but I’m enjoying every step. These videos are following the IB Syllabus in terms of learning outcomes as well as order of delivery, so I will integrate them with my iTunes U course for IB Economics next year.

Here are the links to playlists of videos I created for teaching the different concepts under the topic of ‘Demand & Supply‘ and the topic of ‘Elasticity‘.

Some tips for using Explain Everything to create instructional videos:

1- Make it visual and try to use text sparingly => your voice should do most of the ‘explaining’.

2- Make it short and sweet => 5-12 minutes is reasonable.

3- Use colors and shapes.

4- Record using a microphone in a quiet area => I just use my iPhone headphones which include a good mic.

5- Start the video by mentioning what the video is about and its learning outcomes.

6- Label each video succinctly and carefully so it’s easy to identify its focus.

7- Be real in the video => don’t be afraid to use humor and show your real personality.

If you have not yet used Explain Everything, I suggest you go give it a try! Enjoy 🙂